SAGE Acquires Adam Matthew

Adam Matthew, a company that’s known for providing specialized online primary-source collections, announced today that it’s been bought by SAGE, a leading independent academic and professional publisher. This follows a year-long relationship in which SAGE distributed Adam Matthew materials in the Middle East.

Adam Matthew Digital and Adam Matthew Education will maintain their offices in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England, and in Chicago, IL. They will continue to produce online collections of archival materials on topics from medieval family life to 21st-century culture (see for example LJ‘s reviews of the company’s Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest and Jewish Life in America c. 1654-1954) and will maintain existing customer relationships as a SAGE imprint. The difference, the company explains, is that while Adam Matthew had a presence in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the U.K., SAGE’s international operations will help Adam Matthew to grow its primary-source program. The publisher has principal offices in Los Angeles, London, Singapore, and Washington, DC, and has had a principal office in New Delhi since the 1980s, says Vice President and Publisher Rolf Janke, which will allow Adam Matthews products to have a far greater reach.

Karen Phillips, Editorial Director of SAGE, explains that the company became increasingly aware of the international demand for primary sources and found in Adam Matthew a partner that was already fulfilling that demand. “Electronic access to primary sources,” she says, “improves discoverability and dissemination. It is becoming increasingly important to support the scholarly community through the development of digital products, supporting the need to be able to access information at the click of a button and ensuring quick and easy access to high quality research.” The primary sources provided by Adam Matthew are the result of long relationships with libraries and archives worldwide; working with such institutions since the days of microfiche has led to the creation of curated collections of primary sources. As Phillips notes, innovation and care are key; “Adam Matthew put heavy emphasis on the curation of the content in their primary source collections. We are both passionate about publishing high quality content and access to education. It is about supporting the needs of the research and scholarly community.”